Advanced Placement Tests Save Time, Money At College

There is no magic to cutting one-fourth off a college tuition bill and, at the same time, reducing the time for a bachelor`s degree.

The shortcut is plunging into college-level courses while in high school. The special units are offered in an Advanced Placement program sponsored by the College Board.

Smart kids and their families already are tuned into the program. They know it offers an opportunity to enter college with a pocketful of credits toward a degree.

When the collection of AP certifications is large enough, a student may get a whole year`s worth of college credits at entry, depending on the school`s policy. Shaving a year off a four-year road to a bachelor`s cuts the tuition bill for the degree 25 percent. The same for room and board.

No small deal. The biggest college costs in history are in effect across the nation. Paring one-fourth off a $50,000 bill for a bachelor`s degree means $12,500 less in loans and family contributions.

Students get a green light on college credit by taking Advanced Placement exams. At present, one or more course descriptions, examinations and sets of curricular materials are available in art, biology, chemistry and computer science. Also available are credits in English, French, German, history, Latin, mathematics, music, physics and Spanish.

The program, in its 29th year, each year draws increasing numbers of students, the College Board says in The AP Yearbook, 1984. The Advanced Placement Exams -- or, in studio art, evaluations -- are offered throughout the world each May.

No examination is longer than three hours; some are shorter.

They are administered at participating schools or at multischool centers. Exams contain either an essay or problem-solving section and another section consisting of multiple-choice questions.

Tests are graded on a five-point scale from ``extremely well qualified`` to ``no recommendation.``

Participating colleges grant credit and appropriate placement to students who have done well on the examinations. At Yale, for example, the policy usually is to wait until the freshman year is completed.

If the student has done well in that year, advanced placement credits make it possible to advance to junior standing, skipping the sophomore year.

Since July advanced placement grades have been going out to students, their secondary schools and the colleges they are entering.

Not all colleges follow the same or even similar procedures upon receipt of Advanced Placement Examination grades, the College Board says.

``Many colleges grant credit and placement automatically for qualifying work on the examinations; some grant either placement or credit only; others are still establishing their policies.``

Highlights of the Advanced Placement Report:

(BU) In May 1984, some 177,000 students took AP exams. That`s up 12 percent over the 1983 number and 191 percent over the number of candidates a decade ago.

(BU) The number of schools offering the Advanced Placement Program to its students increased by 446 over the year before, a record one-year growth in secondary school participation since the program began. The once-experimental program with just 104 schools participating attracted students in 6,272 schools (76 percent public, 24 percent non-public) in 1984. That was up 8 percent over the previous year.

(BU) 239,666 Advanced Placement Examinations were administered during the year, up 13 percent over the previous year.

(BU) The number of Advanced Placement Exams taken by students has more than tripled during the past 10 years.

(BU) Popular subject areas: English, history, mathematics and computer science; sciences, foreign languages, art and music -- in that order.

(BU)

For information about the Advanced Placement Program write to Harlan P. Hanson, Director, Advanced Placement, The College Board, 888 Seventh Ave., New York, N.Y. 10106.